Most detailed (and coolest) map of worldwide Internet use, ever

An anonymous hacker with some curiosity, and apparently a conscious, accessed half a million devices connected to the Internet, worldwide, and kept track of when they were or weren’t accessing the Internet.

He then transferred all this data into an animated gif image. The result is a gorgeous look at how much, and when, the Internet is used across the entire globe.

In the image below, red is a lot, blue is not so much. The hacker notes that “the difference between day and night is lower for US and Central Europe because of the higher number of ‘always on’ Internet connections.”

Adam Clark Estes over at Motherboard does a much better job than I can explaining how this was done, and what it all means. But it is a neat look at the Internet and the world.

I like Estes’ conclusion:

No matter how you like to picture the Internet or what you think it looks like, though, it’s pretty safe to say that these visualizations will only become more complex. With cheap smartphones taking off in Africa and $20 tablets popping up in India, the world is becoming more connected by the minute. So in a few years’ time that confetti-colored map of the world above will look less like chart of privilege and more like an acid trip of progress.

John AravosisFollow me on Twitter: @aravosis | @americablog | @americabloggay | Facebook | Instagram | Google+ | LinkedIn. John Aravosis is the Executive Editor of AMERICAblog, which he founded in 2004. He has a joint law degree (JD) and masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown; and has worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, and as a stringer for the Economist. He is a frequent TV pundit, having appeared on the O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline, AM Joy & Reliable Sources, among others. John lives in Washington, DC. John's article archive.